By Rod Nickel and Liz Hampton
GREGOIRE LAKE, Alberta, May 8 (Reuters) - A wildfire ripping
through Canada's oil sands region blazed for a seventh day on
Sunday as officials warned almost 100,000 people who fled the
area that they would not be returning home soon.
The fire, which started at 6 p.m. eastern (2200 GMT) last
Sunday near the town of Fort McMurray in northern Alberta,
spread so quickly that the town's 88,000 inhabitants barely had
time to leave. Large parts of the town no longer exist.
Officials said that, even though the fire had largely pushed
through Fort McMurray and was heading quickly northeast through
dry boreal forests, the town was still too dangerous to enter.
"Within the community itself I expect over the next coming
month or two that they're going to be able to get a very good
handle on the fire situation," Alberta wildfire prevention chief
Chad Morrison told reporters on Saturday.
Thousands of evacuees are camped out in nearby towns but
stand little chance of returning soon. Provincial officials said
displaced people would be better off driving to cities like
Calgary, 655 km (410 miles) to the south, where health and
social services are better.
Some residents are complaining about the lack of news from
the town, fire chief Darby Allen said in a video posted online
late on Saturday.
"We know from all the calls that you're getting frustrated
because you don't have any information on your homes. We're
really working hard on that, it's a complicated process," he
said.
The inferno looks set to become the costliest natural
disaster in Canada's history. One analyst estimated insurance
losses could exceed C$9 billion ($7 billion).
Fort McMurray is the center of Canada's oil sands region.
About half of the crude output from the sands, or one million
barrels per day (bpd), had been taken offline as of Friday,
according to a Reuters estimate.
An Alberta government statement issued on Saturday night
said the fire had consumed 200,000 hectares (494,000 acres) - an
area the size of Mexico City - and would continue to grow.
More than 500 firefighters are in and around Fort McMurray,
along with 15 helicopters, 14 air tankers and 88 other pieces of
equipment, officials said.
The strain was so intense that fire crews would be rotated
more quickly than usual, Morrison said. One exhausted fireman
told CBC television that members of his team were working up to
40 hours without sleep.
($1=$1.29 Canadian)
(Writing by David Ljunggren; Editing by Paul Tait)